


Vanity Lockdown Adventures

by SeraBee



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeraBee/pseuds/SeraBee
Summary: Partly inspired by Emmerdale's lockdown special episodes and partly inspired by a walk I took with my own children in the woods this week. I have definitely got too many fanfiction eggs in too many baskets right now, but this is the only thing my brain wanted to write today so I apologise. Hopefully its not as awful as I think it is.
Relationships: Charity Dingle/Vanessa Woodfield
Comments: 13
Kudos: 95





	Vanity Lockdown Adventures

  
Charity thinks she’s mad, setting her alarm clock and getting up so early when there’s absolutely no where that any of them need to be, but Vanessa doesn’t care. She likes having an hour to herself every morning, when everyone else is still snoring, to wake up slowly and mentally prepare herself for the day ahead. 

Pouring the freshly boiled water into her mug, she adds a single sugar to the black coffee and stirs gently as she gazes out of the kitchen window. The village is perfectly still. The only signs of life are the birds singing ‘good morning’ to each other on the hedgerows and in the trees. Later on, nothing much will change and the quiet and emptiness of the streets will become a stark reminder of this new normal they are trying to create, but for now, at 6am, it’s just a normal morning. 

Taking her coffee, Vanessa slips outside quietly and sits on the bench below the kitchen window, balancing her mug on the dew-covered seat beside her as she takes her phone from her dressing gown pocket. 

She checks her social media first. She’d never been one for Facebook or Twitter or Instagram – but it has quickly become the easiest way to stay in touch with her neighbours, family and friends. Scrolling through her notifications, she notices that she’s been tagged in a post by David, advertising a new delivery service that he and Jacob have set up for the more vulnerable people in the village. She grimaces and makes a mental note to punch him as soon as social distancing stops being a thing. Manpreet at least, has had the good sense to send her private messages with links to articles about how the current crisis is affecting cancer patients. She bookmarks them to read later. 

Sipping at her coffee and taking a deep breath, Vanessa finally works up the courage to visit the school website. Connelton Primary have been doing their best to support parents with home learning, posting a fresh list of activities every week that, for reception at least, tend to revolve around a specific topic. Last week’s topic had been food. For maths, that had meant making a pizza and then using the slices to learn about halves and quarters. For reading, they’d read The Hungry Caterpillar and Daisy Eat Your Peas and talked about why it was important to eat healthy food and how different foods did different things for our bodies. 

Of course, Vanessa has been put in charge of home schooling. Charity tries her best, if Vanessa isn’t feeling too great, but school always finishes early on those days when Charity gets fed up of their constant questions and sticks them in front of the TV. Vanessa is convinced that they do it on purpose now but she lets it slide. It’s not as though Charity isn’t doing anything at all. She’s become obsessed with cleaning since this pandemic broke out – making sure that everyone is washing their hands regularly and that every surface in the house is coated with a layer of Dettol. When Vanessa is having a bad day, she becomes Florence Nightingale’s evil twin again and runs herself ragged making sure that Vanessa has everything she needs whilst simultaneously trying to keep the teenagers from arguing and the rugrats from destroying the house. 

Charity’s paranoia over germs is another reason why Vanessa likes to get up early. If Charity knew that she spent an hour outside every morning, there’d be some lecture about how the virus can stay airborne for however many hours after someone coughs and she’d never hear the end of it. And Vanessa knew that Charity was, in her own way, just trying to protect her and the kids. To be honest, it had become an obsession and Vanessa was worried about her. Cabin fever, she had decided, was a real honest-to-goodness thing and they were all suffering.

As usual, the Connelton Primary Facebook page is littered with photo’s sent in from parents of their children sat like angels at dining room tables doing work or exercising with Joe Wicks. Vanessa is almost certain that each of those kids has been bribed with chocolate or extra screen time to sit down and pose nicely for these photo’s. Surely, she and Charity can’t be the only parents who spend more time peeling their kids off the ceiling than actually managing to teach them.

Opening up the link for reception’s home learning, she groans when she sees that the topic of the week is ‘Nature’ and recommended activities include a nature walk and a mini beast hunt. They don’t have much of a garden, and Charity isn’t exactly a big fan of nature, only ever agreeing to go on walks with the family if there’s a pub at the other end. Vanessa is pretty certain that she’ll be even more reluctant to spend time with the kids outdoors now. This is the woman, after all, who after sending Noah to the shop for essentials, makes him strip off and take a shower while she transports his clothes to the washing machine using a coat hanger. Vanessa had tried telling her that she was going too far, that a bit of fresh air would do them all good, but Charity wasn’t having any of it.

As she slips back inside and quietly closes the door, an idea begins to form. 

\-------------------------------------------

  
“Absolutely not, Ness. No way. It’s too risky.”

Charity nudges at her legs with the vacuum until she dutifully lifts them up onto the sofa, allowing her fiancee to finish off the floor that she’s already swept and mopped. 

“It’s for their education though,” Vanessa pleads, fully aware that she is pulling out the big guns by using the soft voice that generally gets her whatever she wants where Charity’s concerned. Just to make sure, she sticks out her bottom lip and looks up at Charity with her eyes wide. Charity can see right through it, of course, but she sighs dramatically regardless.

“And what if we bump into people? What if someone coughs on you?” 

“Ah!” Vanessa exclaims, having prepared arguments for every one of Charity’s excuses. “We can wear face masks and gloves until we find a spot where no one else is around,” she suggests, “and, I promise to find you a big stick that’s at least 2 metres long and you can poke anyone who comes too close.”

Charity’s face lights up predictably at the thought of beating strangers with a giant stick and Vanessa knows that she’s almost convinced. She watches as Charity bites her lip anxiously, the inner battle between pleasing her fiancee and keeping her fiancee safe clearly visible in her features.

“Come on, Charity. The fresh air will be good for everyone and it will probably mean the kids are in bed earlier tonight…” Vanessa raises an eyebrow and smiles suggestively, chuckling as the last of Charity’s resolve crumbles. 

Opportunities to be intimate and alone together had been few and far between prior to coronavirus, cancer and chemo had seen to that, but with a house full of kids that were constantly there and always vying for their attention, it had been weeks since they’d had any real time to themselves. 

“Fine!” Charity relents, huffing loudly as she switches off the vacuum and throws herself onto the sofa beside Vanessa. “But I am not touching any of these mini-beast things, just so you know.”

Her pout is adorable and Vanessa can’t resist kissing her then. “Thank you,” she murmurs, winding her fingers into the fabric of Charity’s shirt, “and I promise to show you just how thankful I am later.” Charity groans and pulls Vanessa back for one more kiss before the sound of four pairs of feet come charging down the stairs.

“Did Mummy Charity say yes?” Johnny asks, climbing up onto Charity’s lap.

“Only because Mummy was very, very persuasive,” Charity laughs, winking at Vanessa.

“Oh good,” Sarah sighs, “because if you hadn’t we were all going to have to come and do puppy dog eyes and beg you and we tried telling Ness that that only works with her, but she was having none of it.”

Realising she had been well and truly duped, Charity growls half-heartedly and sulks. 

“So that’s how it is eh? Well hopefully we’ll find a bear in the woods and I can feed you all to him and finally have some peace and quiet for a change.”

\-----------------------------------

  
Charity has to admit that living in Emmerdale does have it’s benefits in times of crisis. The fact that it’s fairly remote means that only locals will be venturing out to it’s many areas of natural beauty and although many of her lovely neighbours can’t seem to stop reproducing, that’s still a fairly low number. Their chances of having to socially distance themselves from anyone are therefore fairly slim. Still, she insists that they head for a less popular area that’s just a little further out past Home Farm and that everyone wears a mask and gloves until they get there.

As they near the woods, Charity hangs back a little, taking the opportunity to watch her family as they walk ahead, hand in hand, chatting and laughing. She hates to admit it, but Vanessa had been right. The kids had been cooped up inside for too long and it had been driving them all crazy. Moses and Johnny are itching to run off and play, but they begrudgingly keep hold of Vanessa’s hands until they reach the woods and are given the all clear. Even Sarah and Noah, who are far too old to have ever willingly joined them on an outing like this before, haven’t even taken their phones out of their pockets once. 

And then there’s Ness. She’d wrap her in cotton wool and bubble wrap if she could, but Charity is slowly beginning to realise that now more than ever, Vanessa needs a bit of freedom. Between grief for her dad, Pierce and the cancer, so much has been weighing her down and trying to pull her under. Now, as the wind whips her hair around her face and she turns back to look at her, Charity knows that she’s smiling like crazy under that mask and it makes her heart race just a little bit faster.

The trees in Porter’s Wood are pretty ancient, their gnarled trunks covered in moss and their branches forming a leafy canopy overhead. Moses immediately finds a tree that is perfect for climbing and insists that Noah help him get started.

“Just please be careful you two,” Charity yells, “if you fall and break your leg, I can’t take you to A&E so I’ll have to saw the leg off instead!” 

Vanessa turns and scowls at her, having finally removed her mask once they were sure there was no one else around. She needn’t have bothered though because as usual, neither Moses or Noah have taken the blindest bit of notice of her. Johnny on the other hand hangs back, choosing to walk slowly across a fallen tree trunk whilst holding on tightly to Sarah’s hand. 

“Right then!” Vanessa yells, using the firm but fair school teacher voice she’s perfected during lockdown to signal that she wants everyone’s attention. Opening her backpack, she pulls out two clipboards with a worksheet activity attached to each of them – worksheets that she’s obviously printed off from the school website. She doesn’t even need to look at Charity to know that she’s rolling her eyes.

“And you can keep quiet and all,” she insists, “I told you this was educational.”

Sighing, Charity falls in line with the four kids and awaits her instructions with folded arms and an exaggerated pout. The kids, of course, find it hilarious.

“Mummy Charity isn’t using her resilience!” Johhny yells, pointing at Charity and laughing gleefully. “She needs to go in the thinking corner!”

Charity perks up considerably at the prospect of being sent away to sit by herself, but Vanessa shakes her head. 

“No Johnny love, Mummy Charity is going to be resilient and stop sulking aren’t you dear?” she smiles through gritted teeth.

With a huff, Charity plasters on a clearly false grin and only sticks her tongue out when no one is looking. 

The worksheets contain pictures of lots of different things that might be found in the woods, the names of which are printed next to each image in dots for the rugrats to write over and a checkbox for them to tick when they find each item. Vanessa hands the clipboards and a pencil each to the teenagers and then assigns Noah and Sarah a child each to be responsible for.

“Now, you have to go and find all of these things. Some are easy and some might be more tricky but Noah and Sarah, you guys have to take a picture on your phone of everything you find. The team who finds all of their things first will get a prize, okay?”

Charity laughs as her 16 year old son and 15 year old granddaughter look genuinely more excited than the 4 year olds at the mention of a prize. Once the rules have been made clear and Vanessa has made them repeat them for good measure, both teams head off in search of the first item on their list – an acorn. 

“And what’s my job Miss Woodfield?” Charity asks with her hand in the air.

“Well, we just get to walk around and try and keep an eye on them,” Vanessa shrugs, holding out an arm for Charity to loop with her own. “If you think you can manage that?”

They soon find a patch of grass that is fairly central and gives them a good view of the whole woods. Putting down a blanket she’s bought from home, Charity sits cross legged in the middle and pats her knees for Vanessa to sit in her lap. Shaking her head and laughing, Vanessa sits, squirming slightly to get comfortable and delighting in Charity’s pretend cries of pain. 

“No more takeaways for you lady,” Charity huffs, earning herself a pinch to the thigh.

Wrapping her arms around Vanessa’s waist, Charity props her chin on the other woman’s shoulder and they fall into an easy silence, observing their children who are all engrossed by the task they’ve been given. In the house, all they’ve seemed to do is bicker and whinge, but out in the open, they are actually helping each other, laughing together, having fun. When she catches Moses lying down on the floor to write out one of the words on his sheet, Charity bites her tongue and decides that for the next few hours she isn’t going to worry about germs and she’s just going to enjoy this time with her family.

Eventually, Charity’s legs start to go numb and she shifts Vanessa to sit beside her so she can stretch them out and bang her heels on the floor to get rid of the pins and needles. Once circulation has returned to her extremities, Charity lies back on the blanket, smiling softly when Vanessa joins her, resting her head on Charity’s shoulder.

“Admit it,” she whispers, her breath ghosting Charity’s ear, “you’re glad I convinced you to do this aren’t you?”

Charity shifts onto her side a little so she can reach over and run her fingers through Vanessa’s hair. Despite herself, she smiles and nods before kissing Vanessa softly on the forehead. 

“I mean, I suppose I can’t really complain if I get to lie here with you,” she murmurs.

She knows she’s probably been insufferable since this virus had taken over their lives. Cleaning and obsessing over germs had kind of become her way of keeping busy and stopping her from dwelling too much about Vanessa and Sarah, and even the pub. There was just so much uncertainty, and new rules to follow, that Charity had been feeling quite overwhelmed. But here, lying under the trees with Vanessa, her children happy and running free, things feel refreshingly simple. 

\----------------------------

  
Johnny and Sarah are the first pair to return with every item on their list ticked. Sarah proudly shows them her phone where she’s taken photographs of everything too.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Charity asks, squinting slightly at a particularly blurry picture.

“It’s a squirrel!” Johnny shouts, “But it was being super fast and wouldn’t sit still when I asked him to!”

Charity laughs, reaching over to yank Johnny into her lap so she can cuddle him. “Well someone needs to remind Mr Squirrel that manners don’t cost anything do they?”

Johnny laughs, relaxing in her arms as she kisses the top of his head. Scanning the wood, she’s just about to panic when she finally spots Noah and Moses who seem to have abandoned their checklist in favour of building a den out of fallen branches by the stream. 

“Picnic time!” she yells, almost deafening Johnny but smiling at how quickly the boys abandon their project and begin running towards them. They might have the attention spans of goldfish, but at least they were predictable when it came to food.

As they collapse onto the blanket between Charity and Vanessa, Noah hands her a half finished checklist with a shrug. 

“Right, well, as Sarah and Johnny were the clear winners, they get to choose the snacks and movie for tonight,” she exclaims, laughing as Sarah and Johnny high five each other. 

“Oh that’s not fair,” Noah groans, “she’ll probably make us watch some soppy romcom or something!” Sarah’s smug grin only confirms his fears and makes him whine even louder.

“Can we eat now Mummy Ness?” Moses asks, hands clasped together in prayer and eyes locked intently on the bag of food by Vanessa’s side. 

“Course you can, Wigglebum,” she laughs, reaching into the bag and pulling out six individual ziplock bags that are crammed full with sausage rolls, grapes, carrot sticks and a chocolate biscuit each. For a few minutes, the only sounds are the munching and crunching of food, the wind in the trees and the twittering of birds. 

As though the great outdoors have made them feral, the food is gone in minutes and only the smear of chocolate around Moses and Johnny’s mouths suggest that it was ever there at all. Wiping his face with his sleeve, Moses asks if Johnny and Sarah can help him finish his den and all four kids are soon off again.

“We should probably get them to do the mini beast hunt you know,” Vanessa muses, looking thoughtfully at the chaotic scene. 

“Nah, leave them to it. They’re having fun,” Charity insists, packing away their rubbish into a plastic bag that Vanessa had bought with her for exactly that purpose. “Besides, I kind of want you to myself for a bit longer.”

  
\------------------------

  
The kids are already flagging by the time they start walking back but Charity refuses to carry either of the rugrats because she knows that they’ll only fall asleep on her shoulder if she does and she really wants them to have an early night.

As promised, Vanessa had found her a long, thin branch that was approximately two metres long but she doesn’t get a chance to use it – the village as empty and quiet as it had been when they left earlier in the day. For a place so small, Charity had never realised just how noisy and full of life it had been until this pandemic had hit. Now their tiny world seemed to have shrunk even smaller. 

  
\-------------------------

Back at home, everyone is ordered to have a quick shower and get changed before Charity douses their hands in hand sanitizer for good measure. Sarah graciously relinquishes her movie rights to the younger kids who promptly demand Toy Story. Taking pity on Noah and Sarah, Charity allows them to slink off upstairs with their snacks, thanking them for being such good sports.

“It was fun mum, we should do it again soon,” Noah insists and Charity promises that they will. 

By the time she has poured her and Vanessa some wine, the boys are already asleep and don’t stir when Charity carries them upstairs one at a time and tucks them into bed. She kisses each of them on the head softly before returning downstairs.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your promise lady,” she trills, heading back over to the sofa, grinning like an idiot at the thought of some uninterrupted alone time with Vanessa. However, the only reply she gets is the gentle snores of a fast asleep Vanessa who has curled herself up in the corner of the sofa. She should have known of course, that the fresh air and exercise wouldn’t just be exhausting for the kids – thanks to chemo, Vanessa had a hard enough time staying awake past 9pm on a good day. 

Waking her up just enough to guide her up the stairs, Charity helps her into bed before climbing in herself. Instinctively, Vanessa scoots back until her back is pressed against Charity’s front before reaching for Charity’s arm and pulling it round her waist.

“I love you,” she murmurs sleepily.

“I love you too Ness,” Charity whispers.

It takes a few minutes longer for Charity to drift off to sleep, her mind still whirring with the events of the day. It may not have ended quite how she’d hoped, but it had still been kind of perfect. For all the uncertainty that this virus had bought into their lives, Charity decides that she’s lucky enough to be quarantined with the five people she loves more than anything else in the world. 


End file.
